Gotárÿé
Gotárÿé, Gotharé in'' aelutur'ùvahian and 'Godar' in ''ael'ùvahian, was an ancient, ael'ùvahian language spoken during the time of Cuëníevé in Gil-Gotham and the surrounding areas. It eventually descended into the languages of Gotárné, Gotáryá and Cotárý, of which only the former had any substantial number of speakers. It was similar to the language spoken in the city of Gil-Navarié and shared a common ancestor. As a result, it is part of the Valiän Language Family and is related to languages like Fëarra-íqí-Laquí and, more distantly, Fjorrian. As a rule, sentences were structured as VSO, however, it was not uncommon to use VSVO, in which the verb was used twice, placed on each side of the subject. This sentence structure was always used in the historical past and sometimes in the present tense. Pronouns Gotárÿén pronouns bear more similarities to valiän pronouns that aelutur'ùvahian does. This is seen mostly in the Gotárÿén word for it. In valiän, it is ocutuëryëas. Where aelutur'ùvahian drops the oc- ''in favour of ''tûrl, Gotárÿé keeps the oc- ''and adds the ''-ýtùr ending for a singular pronoun. Grammar Syntax In Gotárÿé, the basic structure of a sentence is either VSO or VSVO, the latter of which is only used when certain criteria are fulfilled. More advanced constructs involving articles, adpositions and adjectives would be rendered as verb-(ad.)(art.)(adj.)subject(adj.)(/art.)(/ad.)-(ad.)(art.)(adj.)object(adj.)(/art.)(/ad.), in which the verb is placed first, followed by the subject which may or may not be changed by a variety of articles, adpositions and adjectives. An object that is subject to the same changes as the grammatical subject of the sentence terminates the sentence. An example of this would be rùv alýtùr oronwímlaldred (alternatively rendered as rùv alýtùr olaldredronwím), meaning I am an authoritative speaker. Alternatively, the subject pronoun can be attached to the start of the verb. An example of this would be olýtùripóss alýtùr ovarer, meaning I brought him. Adjectives and adverbs can be joined to the start or the end of their respective grammatical constructs. If the former structure is used, the adjective may be separated from the noun with a hyphen if the terminating letter of the adjective and the first letter of the noun are the same. If the latter syntax is adhered to, the adjective will be separated from the noun with a hyphen if the terminating letter of the noun and the first letter of the adjective are the same. One such example of this is edra-aÿós, which could be alternatively written as aÿósedra or edra'aÿós. When indirect objects were introduced, the syntax could differ wildly. I gave to him a home could be rendered as: olýtùripóss alýtùr ovarer; póss alýtùr olûm ovarer; ovarer, póss alýtùr olûm; ovarer, olýtùripóss alýtùr; or as onäolýtùr, póss alýtùr ovarer. Punctuation As far as punctuation went, Gotárÿé had little difference from ael'ùvahian and the other languages within its group. Due to the language's fusional aspect, while the noun was capitalised, its modifiers were not. For example, voladred would be rendered as voLaldred and not as VoLaldred if capitalised. Nouns Nouns in this language took two genders and three quantities. The three genders are masculine and feminine, while the quantities are singular, dual and plural. For many nouns, the dual form was indistinguishable from the plural form. Nounal Endings There were six noun endings in the language, the most common of which was the ''-ùr'' ending, followed by the ''-dred'' and ''-ín'' endings. The fourth noun ending was very common and more nouns could be formed from it (for example, êr, from e-'' meaning ''water, was the root of erdred which meant sailor). The fifth ending was only used in the names of factions, cultures and civilisations. The speakers of this language were the Gotárdrí. All of these endings had different inflexions for the singular, dual and plural forms and for the masculine and feminine forms of these quantities. While the ''-ùr'' ending was used for many words, the other endings had specific roles (although, they were not always followed). The ''-dred'' ending was typically used for occupations, titles and places, while the -''ín'' ending was used for diminutives. -ùr -dred -ín -er When -er would normally appear in a noun twice, it is sometimes converted in to an -ír. In this case, the masculine conjugation is ''-ír, -ín'' and ''-oïn''. -dreg -pec There was also a small section of nouns that did not take genders, but instead animacies. These were identified by their ''-pec'' ending. An example of this was the word for body, which meant corpse in its inanimate form. Nouns Regular Nouns Irregular Nouns There were some nouns that had irregular endings or had endings that too few nouns took to be considered typical. Many of these irregular nouns were foreign in origin or were considered to be taboo. For example, synonyms for orks, goblins and other creatures believed to be inherently evil took irregular endings. Articles example: volalùr '' ''the language ùlalùr a language vâlaledam the languages Adjectives As with many things within Gotárÿé, adjectives were inflected depending on gender, grammatical number and sometimes for grammatical person. Adjectives were restricted to a number of endings, which were then inflected upon. There were a few irregular adjectives, generally ones that were derived from names or other languages. Adjectival Endings There were five adjective endings in Gotárÿé. The use of these endings typically related to a certain meaning. For example, the ending ''-ós'' was reserved for colours and emotions, while ''-wýn'' was used for personal qualities. -ós -wýn -ÿén -nwím -lór Adjectives Adverbs Within the language, adverbs were changed depending on circumstance. Adverbs always agreed with the verb. For example, rùv is a first-person, singular form of rùvóm and therefore would take a first-person, singular adverb. There were a variety of adverbal endings in Gotárÿé, which would take different forms and may be modified for even more changes. For example, ''-wás'' was the most simple ending and only changed for quantity and person, while ''-ás'' changed for quantity, voice, person and gender. Adverbal Endings -wás -ás Special Adverbs There were some adverbs that functioned much like adpositions, except they formed around the verb. They took the same position as adpositions would. They had no inflexions or changes and remained constant, no matter the grammatical person, tense, voice or quantity. *as in return *as in disallowed Common Adverbs Adpositions In Gotárÿé, adpositions are formed much like the articles are. Gotárÿé, as a highly fusional and inflexional, the postpositions and prepositions are added onto the nouns. The grammar of the language is such that the adpositions are added furthest from the noun. For example, of the kings would be ívôroëdonemí. Verbs Verbs in Gotárÿé took ten grammatical persons, five tenses and two grammatical voices and were inflected depending on these categories. The grammatical persons are the singular and plural versions of first-person, second-person, third-person masculine, third-person feminine and third-person neutral. The grammatically tenses are past, historical past, present, future and conditional. The historical past is used to convey events and ideas that happened before one's birth or in literature. The grammatical voices are active and passive. Vowel and Consonant Morphology In this language, the initial and terminal vowels (excluding inflexions) are changed depending on the tense. For some tenses, the vowel remains unchanged and the consonants undergo changes instead. The morphology vowels is limited to the verbs that end in ''-óm'', which is subject to both changes in vowels and consonants. Vowel Changes In cases where the verb contains a double vowel (for example, the tenses of eöm behave as eüróm), the initial vowel changes while the secondary vowel remains the same. For example, the historical past tense, first-person, singular, active form of eöm would be aürem. Consonant Changes Verbal Endings Similar to the nouns of Gotárÿé, the verbs in this language took a variety of endings, with the inflexions for the grammatical tenses, persons and voices changing depending on which endings were witnessed in the verb. While ''-óm'' and ól could be used for most verbs, ''-(i)ra'' was only used for reflexive verbs and ''-es'' was used for verbs that were considered modal verbs in English. ''-es'' was the most defective of the verb endings, only differing in tense and quantity and had no distinction between masculine, feminine and neutral third-person forms. It was related to the ael'ùvahian verb ending ''-asta'' (for example, rùvasta). -óm Historical Past As the most common verb in the language, rùvóm is subject to many irregularities. For example, the terminal consonant is changed, while for other verbs it remains unmodified. Past Present example: rùv alýtùr Cârêd I am Cârêd Future Conditional -ól Historical Past Past Present Future Conditional -(i)ra Historical Past Past Present Future Conditional -es Historical Past Past Present Future Conditional Verbs -óm *behave as eüróm, bùróm and roüróm respectively + as in, to emit smoke -ól -(i)ra *if used in the first-person, singular forms, it is considered to be bad -es Possession Possession in Gotárÿé can be denoted in two ways. The primary way involves the use of possessive adjectives, which are attached onto the possession. The other way is to modify the possessor. The former can be used when the subject is a noun or a pronoun, while the latter requires that it is a noun. Possessive Adjectives example: his child is violent rùvó olwýnipavaïn bewýn Possessive Inflexion The possessive inflexion is held to be a remnant of a now obsolete genitive case. This inflexion can only be used for the possessing nouns and only when the sentence follows a VSO structure. -ùr -dred -ín -er -dreg -pec Category:Languages and Dialects Category:Languages Category:Elven Languages Category:Extinct Languages